


Colored Pencils

by inadistantworld



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Background Percy/Tary, Background Vax/Scanlan, Birthday Presents, F/F, First Meetings, Fluff, Love Confessions, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2019-01-18 09:02:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12385047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inadistantworld/pseuds/inadistantworld
Summary: Keyleth is constantly amazed by Vex, because who isn't? And it makes being around her so often a little hard, but she also wouldn't have it any other way.





	Colored Pencils

**Author's Note:**

> I'm terrible at summaries so sorry but I hope you like it. I actually have the pencils that I'm talking about later in the fic and they always make me smile and I was looking through them and thought about Keyleth, so I wrote a little thing about it.  
> Let me know what you guys think!

Percy was the one who got her to start drawing more, they were drawing buddies. It had been hard at first, seeing as he was very good at it and had been doing it for a long time, but he never made her feel like she was doing badly. If she asked he would help her and give advice, but most of the time he smiled and said everything he liked about it.

It was through their years together that Keyleth became more technically skilled and developed her style more, but more importantly that was how she met Vex. Percy knew Vax through high school, they had gone to the same rich kid school for a year or so (probably less), and therefore he knew Vex as well. It was also how he met his boyfriend Tary, but while Keyleth liked Tary he wasn’t Vex.

And in their sophomore year of college Keyleth met Vax for the first time. He was making out with Scanlan in a closet, the closet that she was going into to get a jacket she had hung up. All three of them froze and looked at each other, then Keyleth simply grabbed her jacket and closed the door. When she turned around there she was.

Vex’ahlia.

Percy had invited them over (plus Pike and Grog) to talk about some big cosplay thing they were doing for comic con, they were finishing up the final touches and all that. Keyleth was going to go but right before she bought the tickets her father called and asked her to come home that weekend. Now she was regretting it.

Emon University was a large school and Percy rarely had friends over, so it was completely possible that she had simply never run into Vex. However she could not fathom how she had never taken notice of her before. She was simply too beautiful to miss. And now Keyleth found it immensely hard to breathe as she looked upon Vex for the first time.

“—and the asshole tried to tell me it was only worth fifty bucks,” she huffed. Vex had dark eyes. So dark the pupil almost disappeared in them. And she wore red lipstick. And she had a leather jacket that fit her perfectly. Keyleth looked down at her simple green zip up jacket in her hand and back to Vex. Vex who looked like she could be someone in a band. Vex who looked impossibly flawless.

Percy’s eyes flicked up and he saw Keyleth standing off to the side and waved her in, “Keyleth, come on in. I forget, have you met Vex?”

Vex.

Keyleth stepped in, keenly aware of how she was walking and firmly believed her steps were too large and the pace was off. She blinked and shook her head a little, a few strands of red hair falling in front of her face. “No.”

Vex, for all of her coolness and how good she looked and just how far out of Keyleth’s league she was, smiled and held out her hand. “Percival, you’ve been keeping your other friends from us?”

Keyleth didn’t notice the sly smile he gave to Tary as he answered, “I’ve been trying to get everyone together, it just never seemed to work out. Keyleth, you haven’t met Vax and Scanlan yet either, have you? I know you have Pike and Grog in few classes.”

“I think I met them, unless we have burglars in our closet.”

“What?” Tary asked.

Vex’s eyes narrowed and she looked over Keyleth’s shoulder to the closet, “Gross.”

Keyleth smiled a little and shrugged, “At least they had their clothes on.”

They sat around the table, Keyleth across from Vex because as close as she wanted to be she found that she couldn’t be that close without losing her breath. Vax and Scanlan returned a few minutes later and Vex made a number of jokes at her brother’s expense who just smiled and let it happen. And they talked about their comic con plans and Pike made dinner after a while and soon they all left.

“We should hang out again soon,” Vex had such a nice smile, not many people could say no to it.

Keyleth nodded, “I had a lot of fun.”

“Me too. I’ll text you, maybe we can get lunch together or meet up in the quad sometime.”

Keyleth nodded. She didn’t give Vex her number, she didn’t even think of it until Vex was long gone. She thought maybe that meant she didn’t mean it, maybe she didn’t really want to hang out again. Not until she got a text from Vex the next day asking it she was free.

They spent quite a bit of time together after that. Keyleth didn’t change too much in the fact that she was as awkward as ever around Vex, but she did find it easier to breathe after a while. Even when Vex was acting friendlier than she was used to. But it was just who she was, there was always a wink, she called everyone darling, lingering touches and that look in her eye was just a normal part of who she was. Keyleth worked very hard to remind herself of that.

Though Vex didn’t always make it easy. For instance, sometimes she would take Keyleth on motorcycle rides and she would tell her to hold on tighter, and Keyleth would have to remind herself not to think too hard about Vex’s abs or how good she smelled or how much she loved being that close. Once Vex serenaded her in front of the entire quad. She later found out it was because Scanlan dared her to and Vex never backed down from a dare. One of the hardest parts was also the sweetest. Vex was a nerd, not like Percy and Tary, but she did enjoy theater. It was how she knew Scanlan, well that and through her brother. But the two of them also took theater classes together and were in a number of plays. And Vex would always practice with Keyleth. Especially the romantic parts.

One time a scene called for a kiss. Keyleth thought Vex was going to do it, she looked up from the page and Vex was watching her, neither seemed to be breathing. And then Vex cleared her throat and said the next line. Keyleth was not sure exactly what she wanted that night, but she had a feeling it wasn’t that.

But time passed and nothing happened. Not that she really expected it to, not that she even really hoped that things would change. Though sometimes, secretly, she thought things almost did. Or maybe she just almost wanted it to be a little more and imagined it.

Whatever the case, time passed, and with time comes dates. Keyleth was very diligent about this sort of thing, not for any particular reason, just because she always had been. Every day she got up and made an X on her calendar for the new day. She always took note of the small holidays and the interesting things, she always marked friends’ birthdays and dates of exams and papers due. Vex however, sometimes got the date wrong. It wasn’t that she didn’t care or that she wasn’t paying attention, it was that of everything going on from the moment she woke up to the moment she fell into bed she wanted to do something else. She wanted to do it all. But of course she remembered the important things.

Keyleth was surprised when one of these important things was her birthday.

The entire group of friends had decided to go out for her birthday on the weekend of course, but it was Tuesday and she hadn’t received a text from Vex saying anything about it. Of course it was disappointing, but this was Vex. Vex had so many amazing things going on in her life. And she was only Keyleth, really quite boring by anyone’s standards. She really should have expected it.

The others had sent her birthday wishes and Percy had made her breakfast and gave her an unexpected gift that morning. And eventually Keyleth made her way to class.

Leaning next to the door was someone very unexpected. Vex. She was wearing heavy combat boots (suspiciously like her brother’s), a plain green shirt, and her black leather jacket. Her hair was done in its thick braid, and a smile played along her lips. Of course she looked so cool, she always looked so cool.

“Kiki! Happy Birthday!” Vex rushed over and pulled her into a tight hug. “Here, here, I got you something.” She pulled away and pressed a package into Keyleth’s hands.

“Oh, you didn’t hav—”

“I wanted to,” Vex insisted.

Keyleth smiled and held it close to her chest, “Thank you. I’ll open it after class.”

“It’s nothing major, I mean, you probably have something better. But, well I just saw it and I thought of you and I wanted to get it for you. I hope you like it, but don’t worry if you want to use something better. I just—shit you’ll understand when you see it. My class started half an hour ago so I need to go, I just wanted to wish you happy birthday in person.” She kissed Keyleth’s cheek and began walking off to her class. She looked over her shoulder to see the redhead still staring after her and smiled a little wider before she started a little more of a jog off to the other side of the campus.

Once Keyleth sat down in class she carefully placed the present in her bag and took a few deep breaths and began reviewing her notes again before the test, but she had an enormously hard time focusing on them for _some reason_.

 

When she finally got home she went to her room. She didn’t have a reason, she couldn’t say exactly why she wanted to open it in private, she just did.

The paper was green, one of Keyleth’s favorite colors of course. There was no note attached to it, no special ribbon. It looked like, in some places, there had been something taped down but it had been carefully removed.

She unwrapped it carefully and slowly with a heart that pounding uncontrollably.

Inside was a sketchbook, a simple, leather-bound sketchbook with lovely paper. It was gorgeous, something she would have shied away from buying herself because she wasn’t good enough to draw in something so beautiful. And underneath the book was a package of colored pencils. They didn’t appear to be of the same quality as the sketchbook but still seemed fine. As she inspected the colors a little more a smile broke out across her face.

There was a light pink named You Make Me Blush. A purple named Feeling Grapeful. Yellow was Honey Bee. Peach Petal. Green was Not Too Jaded. There was Snow Day and Lime All Yours. Nacho Cheese and Olive You Lots. Cinnamon Buns was an orangey brown, Leaf Me Be the color of summer leaves. Raspberry Tart made her really crave something with raspberries. And of course what set of colored pencils doesn’t have La La Lavender?

The pencils made Keyleth laugh long and hard. She went through every single one and set aside her favorites, tested colors out on blank paper (just scrap pieces, not the nice paper in part one of Vex’s gift), and just generally enjoyed such a lovely thing. It felt personal, only aided in the fact that Vex had said she thought of Keyleth when she saw it. Keyleth could think of no better gift. Of course on Saturday when Pike pressed a gift into her hands or Grog said something surprisingly sweet she would say the same thing, and she had said the same thing when Percy gave her her gift this morning, but right now it was just as true as all the other times.

She flipped through the pages of the sketchbook. It was too fine for her to have bought for herself, and she knew the cost of a real, good leather book like this and wondered how hard Vex had haggled for it. The knowledge that Vex wouldn’t have paid full price didn’t bother her, if anything it made her love it more. The more Vex wanted something the harder she bargained for it. And knowing the general cost of a gift like this and the money Vex would have wanted to pay, she knew it had been a long and heated debate. All for her. And it would be a shame to let it go to waste, to sit on a shelf where she was too afraid to touch it.

So the question became what to draw in it. Did she draw flowers? The view over a canyon? Fan art of their favorite characters from that show on Twitch? Did she draw characters from anime or video games? A self-portrait? The woods? Percy drew weapons and designs, she may not be as interested in the inner workings of a thing like that but she could perhaps draw Vex’s bow? Or maybe some animals?

But there was only one right answer. Of course, how could she have not immediately known? The first page was meant to be of Vex herself.

Keyleth, despite rarely having drawn Vex (she had the hardest time drawing those closest to her and Vex always seemed to end up the most wrong out of all of them), began sketching her out with ease. Keyleth used her most recent memory of Vex to go off of. Vex stood leaning against the wall by her classroom with one foot pressed against it and her knee bent, a hand was in her hair as she looked over towards Keyleth off the page, an elegant and warm smile touched her lips, and in her hand she held the green present.

Keyleth spent a long time picking out the colors when she was done with the line art. It took a long time, Percy came and knocked on her door to check on her but she assured him she was fine. But hours later, when the lines were perfect and she was ready, she picked through her favorite colors again.

First, her eyes. She spent a long time looking through the browns, testing them on blank paper and reading the name of it before she finally decided on Dark Chocolate. Next, because she was already looking at the browns, she decided on her hair. Redwood and Must Be Rusty, perhaps with a little bit of Nuts About You. Then, because it was easiest, her jacket would be Lights Out. And the shirt underneath would be green, specifically Into the Woods. She picked the color of her dark jeans and the dark gray, almost black, boots (Blue Jeans and Rocky Mountains respectfully), and then she found herself stuck on the hardest parts.

She spent almost twenty minutes decided the color of her feathers. They were not Pool Party, they were not Un Da Da Sea, they were not Blue Ribbon, not Tealishous. She narrowed it down to two after covering half the page in scribbles and quick sketches of feathers colored in with the different colors and combinations and gradients. Water You Up To? and Out of the Blue. She decided, after much difficulty, Out of the Blue, because Vex had come from out of the blue.

The hardest one by far though was the color of her lips. She had more than one color of lipstick was one problem, but worse was that there was no perfect color in any box of color pencils she’d ever seen. And she had looked. She had spent a lot of time noticing Vex’s lips, she knew them very well and she knew the color they should be. And that color was not in this group of pencils and it was not in any other. It was not Back to the Fuchsia, not Rosy Cheeks. Those were too pink. She tucked them back into the pencil case and addressed the next wrong one. R U Red E. Cute, red, bright. But not good enough. Next was I Lava You. Funny, a nice enough color, but it struck her as too orange. After that she spent a lot of time looking at Hot Tamale. It was close. Dark and striking. The color would be good on Vex, Keyleth told herself to look for something like it to give to her. But it was not the color she wanted. After that she tried Rosebud. Which she liked, she liked it a lot, and while it was not the color she had imagined it was a color very close to what Vex wore sometimes. It was bright, eye catching, and sexy. It would do. It would do very nicely.

And eventually she sat back and just looked at it. There would always be problems, she of course would pick up on the mistakes and the places where things could be better, but all her time with Percy had helped her put that to the side. She was not striving for perfection, she was trying to enjoy herself and her art and that was different than perfect. Though she would say this was her favorite piece she had ever done.

But it was nearing two in the morning and, without doing her homework, she fell into bed and slept.

 

The next day she found Vex in the quad. Technically Vex had a class, realistically they didn’t take roll and Vex was very good at the class and passed all her tests and homework (that she did) so she did not go to it most days. And even though Keyleth usually would reprimand her, today she was happy about it. She sat beside Vex who was reading through another one of the plays they were working on.

“Thank you for the sketchbook, it’s amazing. And I loved the pencils.”

Vex smiled and closed her book. “Really? I thought they were cute but I know you probably have ones that are nicer, so don’t worry about using them. I just thought these ones would make you smile.”

“They did,” Keyleth reached into her bad and pulled out the book with shaking hands. “And the colors were very nice. I actually used them last night to draw something. It’s…kind of for you, I guess.” She held it out to Vex who took it carefully.

She opened it and Keyleth watched her expression very closely but found herself too jittery to really pick much up.

Vex stared at it for a long time before she even looked at Keyleth. “It’s beautiful,” she said quietly.

“You are.” Keyleth clapped her hands over her mouth because that was _not_ what she meant to say.

“Keyleth,” Vex took one of her hands away from her mouth and held it in her own, giving it a gentle squeeze, “there’s…there’s something I’ve wanted to tell you for a while.” Keyleth watched Vex’s tongue dart out and lick her lips. She closed her eyes and sighed deeply.

“What’s wrong?” Keyleth frowned, worried about what she would say next. The drawing was too obvious. Vex was going to tell her to stop. She and Zahra were so close, they were probably going to—

“I love you.”

Keyleth blinked and focused back on Vex. “What?”

Vex’s cheeks turned the color of Oh So Pretty and her eyes drifted to the side, “I love you,” she said again, hesitantly this time.

“I love you too?” Keyleth’s voice lilted up in a question, they had said this before, they all had. They were all close friends, of course they loved each other.

“No, I mean,” she took another deep breath, “I mean I _love_ you.”

“Oh,” Keyleth said, still not really getting it. And then her eyes widened, “ _Oh._ ”

“Yeah,” she laughed nervously and pulled her hand away. “I just felt like you should know.”

Keyleth reached out and took her hand back. “Me too.” She shook her head, that wasn’t what people say. “I mean—I mean I love you too. Like that. Not like—well not like everyone else. I mean it in like a romantic way. Like. Sometimes I think about holding your hand,” Vex’s eyes glanced down at theirs, fingers laced together, and smiled. “And something I think about hanging out with just you,” Vex looked around as if to prove none of their other friends were here, though it was a rare occurrence. “And—and sometimes I think about kissing you.”

And Vex leaned in and swiftly, expertly, caught Keyleth’s lips with her own.

And it was the first of many kisses the two would share. It was the first of many hand holdings, many dates on the quad, many I love you’s exchanged, many awkward explanations on Keyleth’s part, and many many drawings of Vex.

It was the first day of an entire life together. And, needless to say, it was perfect.


End file.
